


Stable and Alive

by batyalewbel



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Also this author is ace they may not kiss please be chill kids, Angst, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Warning for some self directed homophobic language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-11-08 01:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20827379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batyalewbel/pseuds/batyalewbel
Summary: “I did it, Richie I think we did it! We got him!”And Richie can’t think, can’t speak, can’t open his mouth and say something.Instead he grabs Eddie by the shoulder and shoves.The next bit happens fast, too fast to follow when his head's still so full of shit he doesn’t understand.Everybody’s screaming and Eddie is screaming and then something stabs Richie in the stomach.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm amazed that this doesn't seem to be a more common trope in this fandom. In fact I haven't seen any other fix its that do this although I would happily read them if they exist. Basically I was writing and I had a horrible horrible idea that I had to do. This is marked as a Fix-It fic no one is actually going to die
> 
> Also CW: for use of the term fag. Richie is not kind to himself
> 
> And I saw this movie once I'm going to get some details wrong for sure.

Richie is not built for this.

Richie is not built for _ any _of this.

He’s just a middle-aged fag and a shit comedien to boot.

His responses to stress include the following: 

  1. Shitty jokes
  2. Screaming
  3. Puking

But that fucking clown is cornering his friends in this shithole cave and everything’s dark and slippery and that clown is going after his fucking friends.

Bill, Mike, Ben, Beverly.

_ Where’s Eddie? _

He can’t focus on that now. He has to _ do _something.

And Richie has one thing going for him.

Trashmouth Tozier knows how to talk, or better yet, scream.

As It looms over his friends, Richie grabs a rock and hurls with all his might at the fucker’s head.

“You wanna play truth or dare?” He shouts and his voice bounces off the edges of the cavern to echo back at him, almost as loud as his heartbeat in his ears.

“Here’s a truth, you’re a sloppy bitch!”

It turns with its horrible maw open wide and sharp appendages held ready.

He has It’s attention and the only thing he has in his arsenal is more words as he watches the others scramble backwards to safety.

“Yeah that’s right! let’s dance, yippee ki yay motherfu–”

And the world goes white

\---

He doesn’t remember seeing the lights.

One second he’s standing in a cave with a murder clown and the next, he’s whirling through time and space.

Images flash by almost too quick to parse and yet he _ feels _all of them. Memories of things that have come to pass and things that haven’t.

He sees Stanley bleeding out in the bathub.

He sees Bill die. He sees Beverly die.

Ben and Mike too.

Crushed by falling rocks, torn apart, and eaten alive.

He sees all of them die, feels them all die, including himself.

A thousand futures he barely can comprehend let alone understand.

One hits him hardest. The most vivid in the swirl.

Eddie.

On top of him saying, “I did it, Richie. I think we did it! We got him!” Before one of It’s massive claws knives through Eddie’s chest. 

Blood spatters Richie face, warm and metallic and too much.

Richie sees so many things. Past, present, and future. He sees forever.

A thousand forevers.

Without Eddie in them.

\---

It stops as abruptly as it starts.

One second he’s cursing out a killer clown, the next he’s seeing eternity, and the next…

He’s on the ground.

Eddie’s on top of him.

“I did it, Richie I think we did it! We got him!”

And Richie can’t think, can’t speak, can’t open his mouth and say something.

Instead he grabs Eddie by the shoulder and _ shoves. _

The next bit happens fast, too fast to follow when his head's still so full of shit he doesn’t understand.

Everybody’s screaming and Eddie is screaming and then something stabs Richie in the stomach.

\---

Eddie is not a brave man. He wasn’t born with the stones for it. Bill’s brave, like it's his duty to be and anything else would be a failure. Mike’s brave like a survivor, he faces fear with a steel straight spine. Beverly’s brave in the way of somebody whose been through hell enough to look it in the eye. Ben is brave in that gentle way of his and Richie…

He sees what’s happening to them, the same way he saw that thing nearly take a bite out of Richie’s face earlier. The same way he saw everyone jump down a hole in the ground, expecting him to follow.

He sees it all through a fear rigormortis.

Eddie is so fucking scared, all he can do is watch as Richie...

_ Good god Richie… _

He throws a rock at It and then starts screaming at the thing.

Eddie almost laughs aloud when he calls it a sloppy bitch but mostly he just watches Richie Trashmouth Tozier with something like awe...maybe more than awe.

Maybe a hint of something he still isn’t ready to touch.

And then Richie stops.

And then Richie goes limp like a puppet with cut strings.

And then, lit by a beam of light from the monster’s mouth...lit by the deadlights...Richie begins to float.

_ No not Richie, _he thinks desperately as Richie hangs in the air like a dead fish that the clown looks ready to eat and suddenly Eddie remembers the poker Beverly handed him a million years and thirty minutes ago.

_ ‘It kills monsters,’ _ she said, _ ‘If you believe it does.’ _

“This thing kills monsters,” Eddie murmurs. “This kills monsters if I believe it does.”

His fingers clench around it, forming a fist.

“This thing kills monsters,” he whispers and then he rears back and throws it with all his might.

And somehow his aim is true and it lands and the thing starts to flail, spewing acid like lava, and shrieking in a way that Eddie will be nightmaring about for the rest of his life.

Richie drops like a stone and Eddie stands frozen as It flails it's final death throes.

They all stand there, watching, waiting. 

On the other side of the cavern he can see Bill, standing wire tense and ready. Mike beside him, steady and firm. Ben and Beverly behind them, Beverly’s hand wrapped vice tight around Ben’s wrist as they watch the scene unfold. Still prepared to fight again if they have to.

Finally it writhes into the center of the room and crumbles into nothing.

And the moment there’s silence, Eddie races to Richie.

“Richie, hey Richie,” he taps the man’s cheek with a dirty, shaky hand.

“Richie wake up,”

And Richie does, slowly. 

So slowly, his eyes blink open and he stares at Eddie.

Doesn’t move or speak or smile, he just stares.

“I did it, Richie I think we did it! We got him!”

The only reaction is a slight widening of the eyes.

And then, without warning, Richie’s hand is on his shoulder and he’s _ shoving. _

Eddie rolls before he can even think to stop himself. His body lands on a rock just below and he can feel something crack and then he looks up. He opens his mouth, about to say _ “What the fuck Richie?” _when it happens.

It happens.

That fucking thing spears Richie through the stomach with a massive claw and Eddie doesn’t even realize he’s screaming. Doesn’t realize there are tears in his eyes and the others are shouting words he can’t understand as Richie gets lifted into the air and then tossed aside like an unwanted toy.

Eddie watches with horror as Richie crashes against a wall and lands in a heap. And _ does not get up. _

He runs. He doesn’t think, he just runs.

“No, no, no, no, no”

It takes him a minute to realize the words are coming from his mouth as he kneels down beside the other man, checking for a pulse, for a heartbeat, tearing off his jacket and pressing it to the wound.

There’s a lot of blood. Far too much of it. 

It dribble’s down Richie's chin as his eyes open slowly behind cracked frames.

“Hey,” he whispers.

_ “Hey,” _Eddie almost sobs in reply, happy to see him awake and talking and everything is still happening behind them. He can hear the others still fighting Pennywise but right now all his attention is focused on Richie.

The man in question smiles at him, sloppy and crooked.

“You’re gonna be okay Richie,” he says, trying to force certainty into his voice while ignoring the facts that he knows. Like how many pints of blood it takes for a person to die of blood loss. Or how quickly an infection can set in, or sepsis, or shock.

He tries to push all that aside and smile back, “You’re gonna be okay.”

Richie’s smile widens, nearly a grimace, but his eyes are soft and focused on Eddie. There’s blood on his teeth and on his hand when he reaches up to cup Eddie’s cheek.

“So’s...your mom,” He claps his hand against Eddie’s cheek and lets it drop.

The laugh that escapes Eddie comes more from the sheer unreality of it all. Richie Tozier bleeding out and making jokes about his mother.

If the laugh mixes with tears, who cares at this point?

It dies the instant Richie’s eyes start to drift, losing focus as his smile turns sour and he coughs.

Behind them, the others are still fighting and Eddie needs to _ do something. _

He can’t save Richie until they kill this fucking clown.

He reaches down, fists a hand in the man’s hair and says, “Don’t you dare fucking die. Eyes open right now, _ you hear me?” _

Richie’s eyelids flicker and then open again with effort.

“Good,” Eddie says like death itself is listening, “Wait here. Wait for me okay?”

_ Okay, _Richie’s mouth forms the words without sound and it’ll have to do. He releases his grip roughly, if his hands weren’t shaking he might have been gentler but there's no time.

He runs to the others in the center of the room where Pennywise is small and they're all screaming at it.

He joins in and takes horrible delight in watching it shrink and dissolve.

\---

He’d never seen Eddie like that.

Eddie who used to scream about all the illnesses that could pass from the sharing of bodily fluids, pressing some ball of fabric down into his bloody stomach, hard.

His hands came away red and when they gripped Richie’s hair, he wanted to say something meaningful, something good.

But it seems he used up all his air on a joke about Eddie’s mom which was typical and just his luck.

But Eddie was there, inches from him, demanding that he open his eyes and wait for him.

And Richie, sucker that he was, obeyed for as long as he could. He opened his eyes and watched Eddie run towards the others, towards that fucking clown.

Until the room began to blur around him.

Darkness edges at his vision and he wills himself to stay awake. 

But even the pain is drifting away and Richie just feels cold.

Before he’s swallowed by the dark he hears them, all of them, shouting.

They sound victorious.

They sound like they’re winning.

And Richie likes the sound of that.

So he smiles as his soul slips away.

\---

When they go running back to Richie, his eyes are closed and there’s a faint smile on his lips.

And Eddie absolutely loses any semblance of composure he once had.

He’s lost it forever. He’s never getting it back.

Because Richie lying there still as death is enough to make him lose his shit.

“It’s gone Richie. We did it. Wake up, _ Richie! Fucking wake up!” _

“Eddie, we have to go,” That’s Bill behind him and the room is shaking or he’s shaking or maybe both. He can’t look away from Richie, he’s not sure what will happen but he can’t tear his eyes away.

“The place is coming down,” That’s Mike and sure enough there’s bits of pebble and dust falling from the ceiling in splashes. Behind them something crashes to the ground with an audible crack.

And Eddie doesn’t give a shit.

“We can’t leave him,” he says through his teeth, through his tears. He has his hands on Richie’s shoulders, ready to shake him awake.

“Eddie,” that’s Beverly, soft and sad.

“He’s not gone,” Eddie says stubbornly, knotting his fingers in the man’s jacket.

“He’s not gone,” he says again and his voice breaks.

Mike bends down beside them and presses two fingers beneath Richie’s jaw.

“Eddie he has no pulse,” Mike says and it reminds Eddie of his voice on the phone. Gentle, sad, scared. The place shatters around them and Eddie just shakes his head, “No. He’s not gone. We _ can’t leave him here.” _

Ben kneels down on his other side and just reaches out, “Let me, Eddie, let me.”

Eddie wants to say no, wants to say they’re all wrong and then Ben just pulls at Richie’s limp form and Eddie lets go before he even fully understands. Ben hoists the body over his shoulder and nods at all of them.

“Lets go.”

And they go.

Only Beverly’s hand, clamped around his wrist propels him forward as he stumbles and runs and cries and the whole fucking place crumbles around them.

\---

_ There’s nothing here. Its nothing but light and void. _

_ ‘Is this heaven?’ Richie asks, ‘If so this is pretty shit, you should get a better decorator.’ _

_ ‘No,’ a voice says. A familiar voice. _

_ Richie squints, trying to make sense of the figure he sees before him. _

_ ‘Am I dead?’ he asks. _

_ ‘Too soon.’ _

_ ‘What?’ _

_ ‘Beep beep Richie. Time to get back out there.’ _

_ \--- _

When they all crash into the lawn outside the house, there’s a breathless moment of relief when Eddie thinks, _ they made it. _

And then he sees Ben, gently laying Richie on the dry grass.

His glasses are gone. They must have fallen off when they were running and for one wild, panicked moment, Eddie thinks, _ He can’t see without his glasses. _

He tries to run back to the house, even as it collapses into the ground.

Suddenly Bill is there, and Mike too, their arms around him, holding him back.

“Richie needs his glasses,” Eddie pants, desperately straining against their hold, _ “He won’t be able to see.” _

The words tear from his throat and crack apart in his mouth as all the fight goes out of him.

He starts to sob, open gashing sobs, like a wounded animal keening.

Suddenly Beverly’s there, wrapping her arms around him and Ben’s there, serious and focused, pressing a hand to his shoulder but looking at Mike.

“Mike, I need your phone,”

“What?”

“Call 911”

They all freeze and look at Ben whose already moving back, beside Richie, two fingers pressed beneath his jaw.

“He’s got a pulse. Call an ambulance.”

He looks at Eddie.

“He’s still kicking Eddie.”

\---

The rest happens in a blur.

Everybody’s phones got busted from all the running around in the sewer but Mike is still using a brick phone from the early 2000s apparently. Ben later explains that he remembers those phones being sturdier than smartphones and he’s right. The damn thing works when Mike pulls it out of his pocket and dials.

Eddie’s busy trying not to have a fully blown asthma attack.

He collapses on the ground beside Richie, who still looks really dead, and tries to breathe.

“It’s okay, he’s okay,” Beverly murmurs beside him. She’d started holding his hand at some point and he lets her, but his eyes are glued to the shallow rise and fall of Richie’s chest that definitely was absent in the cave.

And Eddie just tries to take a breath and stop crying. Breathing hurts. Everything hurts actually.

For once he doesn’t care.

When the ambulance comes, the EMTs hop out and put Richie on a stretcher as they all watch. 

Without a word, Eddie climbs into the ambulance after they wheel in Richie and only then does he notice the others just standing around outside the ambulance.

“We’ll m-meet you at the hospital,” Bill said.

“Right,” Eddie said, breathless and nodding. Of course they can’t all fit in the ambulance, why did he think they could?

“Be safe,” Ben calls and he sees Mike and Beverly wave as the doors closed.

Then it’s just him, Richie, and a car full of medical technicians who wanted to know a lot of normal things like, ‘How did this happen?’ ‘What’s his blood type?’ Medical history and so on.

Eddie muddles through as best he can.

“We were running around that old house and a beam fell on him...or through him.”

“I think he’s O Negative. I’m not sure.”

“Pretty sure his parents had lung cancer. And um...he needs glasses, he’s basically blind without them.”

That last part nearly starts him crying all over again.

At some point he takes Richie hand, fingers drifting over the pulse point in his wrist as the doctors put an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth and ask Eddie if he needs medical attention.

“Um...I don’t...I...Just help him.”

One of them makes a note on a clipboard but Eddie just closes his eyes and breathes through his nose, his grip on Richie’s hand tightening as the ambulance rattles down the uneven road of Derry.

\---

From there its all one big mess of things that keep happening when all Eddie wants is to crawl into a hole somewhere and collect himself.

The doctors ask more questions. He can’t answer all of them.

Eventually he mentions that it hurts to breathe and they want to take him to get X-rayed.

Normally he would be fine with this and he’s just sitting outside Richie’s hospital room waiting for news but he’s terrified of what might happen if he leaves.

It's not rational and he knows what shock is.

He knows that the shaking and sweating are normal.

His body is reacting to extreme stress.

“Mr. Kaspbrak,” a nurse says, “The Doctor thinks you should get an X-ray done, would you please come with me.”

He knows what he must look like, his stupid scared eyes and covered in dirt, trembling in a plastic chair.

Radiation can lead to various forms of cancer, he wants to tell the nurse. He’s been X-rayed enough times that he could be close to developing some form of cancer.

“I…”

“Would you give us a minute please?” A new voice interrupts and he jerks around to see Beverly along with Ben, Bill, and Mike crowding up the hallway and looking at him.

“The doctor thinks Mr. Kaspbrak needs to be X-rayed,” the nurse repeats more tired than impatient.

“He probably does,” Beverly agrees, “But can you give us a minute please?”

The woman nods, her eyes skimming over the lot of them.

Beverly changed her clothes and washed most of the blood off but the rest of them look about as bad as he does.

The woman sighs and looks at her.

“They’re waiting for him on the 3rd floor, room 301C

Beverly nods and the woman walks away, shaking her head.

“Any news?” Mike asks and Eddie shakes his head. The others trade looks that he can’t quite decipher and then Beverly kneels down next to his seat, opening up her fairly sizable handbag to rummage through it.

“We went back to the inn. I brought you some clean clothes.”

She holds out a shirt and pants, folded neatly in her hands and for some reason thats what sets him off all over again, crying ugly, stupid tears.

Beverly just wraps her arms around him. Ben sits down in the chair next to him to wrap an arm around his shoulder. Mike leans over Beverly to rest a hand on his other shoulder and Bill kneels down in front of him with a hand on his knee.

Its all so stupid, he shouldn’t be crying. Richie didn’t die, they didn’t die. He’s barely even hurt.

_ But Richie did die. _

_ Richie could still die. _

He can’t get the panic to settle into something manageable and every sob hurts his chest but he can’t stop.

Nobody says a word, they just sit with him until he can get himself under some semblance of control.

Finally its Mike who says, “You ready to get your picture taken Kaspbrak?” its such a silly way to ask if he’s ready to get X-rayed it surprised a wet chuckle out of him.

He still doesn’t move though and as if they can all read his mind Ben says, “The sooner you go, the sooner its done.”

“We-we’ll keep an eye on him until you get back,” Bill adds.

“And I’ll have these for you when you’re all cleaned up,” Beverly adds, waggling the shirt she still has in her other hand.

“Rinsing my hair in a bathroom sink won’t actually remove the bacteria…” he starts to say and that makes the rest of them grin.

“That’s the spirit,” Mike says, clapping him on the back, “On your feet Kaspbrak, I’ll go with you to make sure nothing batshit happens on the way.”

“More batshit than a killer clown?” Eddie finds himself asking.

“After being attacked by chinese food, and living in Derry for the last 27 years...You learn to be careful,” Mike replies with a shrug.

“Buddy sy-system,” Bill adds.

\---

He gets X-rayed while Mike waits just outside the door, patient and seemingly unflappable after everything that happened.

Then he waits, leaning against the bathroom door, holding Eddie’s change of clothes, while Eddie rinses as much of himself in the sink as he can. He even uses handsoap in his hair. At least its antibacterial.

He gets changed in a bathroom stall.

Cleaner than he was, but not as clean as he would like, he comes back to the hall outside Richie’s room, all nervy and shaking hands.

The others all look up and shake their heads. No news, no change.

Eventually the nurse finds him and informs him he has two cracked ribs.

She hands him an ice pack and two ibuprofen and tells him not to put pressure on the area and take deep breaths.

He swallows the pills dry and the nurse leaves again, still shaking her head.

After what feels like an age the Doctor steps out of the room and closes the door behind him. He’s an older man, mid 60s if Eddie were to guess, with receding salt and pepper hair and bushy brows.

Eddie’s on his feet and an instant later the others follow suit.

“We were able to stabilize Mr. Tozier but we’ll need to keep him for at least a week to make sure there’s nothing gets infected.”

The doctor keeps talking but Eddie stops hearing it over the ringing in his ears.

Richie’s alive.

Richie’s stable.

_ Richie’s alive. _

He wants to collapse or start crying again. He finds somebody’s arm, possibly Ben’s and squeezes just so he has some anchor to keep him upright. Somebody’s arm wraps around his shoulder.

The doctor is still talking when Eddie finally manages to blurt out, “Can we see him?”

“Visiting hours are--”

“--Please.”

The doctor’s been all business up until now but something softens.

“Any family or spouse would be allowed to…”

He trails off and Eddie opens and closes his mouth like a fish.

The arm around his shoulder now moves to push him forward a step or two.

“Spouse,” Beverly says with a straight face.

Eddie wheels around to stare at her too and she just shrugs with a smile in her eyes.

“He probably won’t regain consciousness right away. It could be a day or two,” the doctor says he just nods numbly and leaves the warmth of the group behind for the cold hospital room.

Richie’s hooked up to so many machines it almost sets him off again.

“Ring for the nurse if you need anything or his condition changes. When he wakes up, we'll need to remove the respirator.”

Eddie nods again, unable to take his eyes away from Richie.

His eyes are closed and skin is so pale it looks almost translucent, every bruise and cut showing up bright as stoplights.

Eddie all but collapses in a chair by the bed. He’s still holding that rapidly melting ice pack the nurse gave him but he’s forgotten what to do with it so he sets it on the little table by the bed and reaches for Richie’s hand.

His fingers are long. A musician’s hands, Eddie muses as he weaves their fingers together.

He has a vague memory of Richie, young and knobby kneed with eyes that were magnified behind thick lenses. He remembers Richie playing the trombone, or was it a tuba?

Every day more comes back and Eddie realizes just how much he’s been missing for 27 years.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for an anxiety attack.

Richie floats, he drifts.

Mostly he dreams of nothing, sees nothing. Just empty black nothing.

Occasionally he thinks there’s a voice saying his name. Somebody holding his hand. Then he sinks back into the black and the nothing again.

\---

The next few days are a blur but a slower, more mundane sort of blur.

He sits and holds Richie’s hand until his hand gets sore and his arms are numb. His knee is bouncing on a constant, unsteady rhythm. He forgets to eat and only sleeps when he accidentally drifts off, letting his head droop against the bed.

He becomes intimately acquainted with every line and mark on Richie’s sleeping face, the way his hair curls across his forehead, the feel of his hand.

He becomes equally acquainted with the beeping machines keeping him alive and the white walls and septic smells of Derry Hospice General. And he knew it pretty well before anyway, but now he becomes far too familiar with these four walls.

He spends hours replaying those agonizing moments in the cave. Considering them from every excruciating angle. They provide no answers, only more questions.

He thinks a lot about Stanley and what he would have thought of all this. He thinks of the way Stanley used to complain about going to shul with his dad. He thinks of the year he sheepishly brought potato pancakes to school around December and turned down bites of Richie's ham and cheese sandwich.

He thinks about Stan dying alone in a tub and wonders if he’s ‘up there’ somewhere watching all this play out.

The Losers come and go, and Eddie thinks they might be taking shifts.

Ben and Beverly try to get him to eat something in the afternoon, Mike and Bill sit with him and try to take his mind off things with stupid games of Go Fish and Rummy. Eddie’s shit at cards but the frustration of constantly losing is a distraction of sorts.

None of them talk about Beverly naming Eddie as Richie's spouse or his _ actual wife _. They probably should but Eddie's too much of a coward and he gets the feeling that the others are trying to…give him space or something.

On the third day Beverly comes alone at 10AM and pulls up one of the three chairs they have in this little room now and sits next to Eddie.

“Eddie, he’s been out for three days. Go home and take a shower. Eat something. Sleep in an actual bed and not this chair. It can’t be good for your ribs to be sitting in that thing all day.”

It probably isn’t. Eddie’s considered that but he can’t bring himself to care.

His knee is bouncing again and he's pretty sure that she’s right.

But he can’t shake the fear that something might change while his back is turned. Richie was dead and suddenly he wasn’t. What if he takes a turn for the worse while Eddie isn’t there?

He doesn’t know how to voice this when Beverly just looks at him like she knows. Like _ she knows. _

She puts a hand on his restless knee and says, “I’ll keep an eye on him while you’re gone. I’ll make sure he’s okay.”

Eddie nods past the lump in his throat because for some reason that does help.

It’s not reasonable or logical but he knows that Bev will keep her word and he feels so unbelievably filthy, a real shower would be heaven.

He nods again and Beverly nods back.

“Ben's waiting with the car, just go downstairs and he’ll give you a ride back to the motel.”

He nods a third time, unable to say thank you but wanting desperately to communicate that.

She nods back like she understands, and Eddie gets to his feet with a groan. That chair has been hell on his back, but he straightens and takes one more look at Richie.

“If he wakes up, the nurse said to keep him calm and call her so they can remove the breathing tube.”

“Okay,” Beverly says nodding her head, deadly serious. Some of the other Losers might have teased him for his medical obsessions once upon a time, but she just nods, and he nods and glances at Richie one last time before heading out the door.

\---

Beverly Marsh considers the state of them as she settles into that plastic chair by Richie’s hospital bed.

It would be hard to explain to somebody outside their group about the loss of memory.

Because it wasn’t all gone.

When she left Derry, she still remembered the shape of things. Vague outlines of a boy who kissed her, a love letter, a summer spent laughing with all of them. A boy with skinny legs and a boy with a soft face who stared at her in a way that made her heart pound. She remembers her father all too vividly and she even remembered a horrible dream where she was covered in blood.

She remembered Richie enough to watch his standup special on Netflix.

She remembered Bill enough to read his book.

She remembered Ben enough to try googling him one time just to see where he was, but his last name had eluded her.

She remembered everything in the abstract, not so much in the details.

She has a feeling it’s like this for all of them.

That they hadn’t forgotten each other so much as they’d forgotten all the details of each other.

Only after they returned to Derry, after they spent an evening laughing around a table and then running in terror did it all come back. Little details slowly forming into clarity over the following days.

She remembers the way Eddie and Richie used to bicker, the way they always seemed to drift towards each other in a large group.

She also remembers the way Richie floated when he was caught in the deadlights. The way Eddie screamed when Pennywise stabbed the other man through the chest.

Beverly wasn’t the sort to make assumptions about things she didn’t know. She had never asked Richie or Eddie directly. She just saw the way they were together. Still, after all these years, drifting into each other's orbit as casually as gravity. They probably don’t even realize they’re doing it.

Beverly doesn’t plan to stick her nose where it doesn’t belong. Saying they were married might have been overstepping, but Eddie looked so shattered in the hallway of this hospital, she knew he wouldn’t begin to settle until he could see Richie and hold his hand.

None of the Losers felt the need to ask questions. Even at the motel there was never a discussion, just a silent, mutual understanding that this is how it is now.

They’ll have to keep a close eye on both of them and keep them safe.

For the time being that mostly means keeping an eye on Eddie and reminding him to eat something or drink some water. For Richie it just means waiting.

So, she sits. She waits.

She holds Richie’s hand, idly reads him a news article on her phone, pages through her emails and about an hour after she sits down, Richie jerks like a spasm. He gives a hoarsely ragged gasp that startles Beverly into dropping her phone.

His head whips around to look at her, his eyes wild and unfocused.

_ ‘He can’t see without his glasses,’ _ Eddie had cried out in senseless panic, wanting to run back into the crumbling house.

His hand lands on her wrist and grips it tight like a vice.

His mouth moves but she can't understand what he's saying around the breathing tube and then he starts coughing, ugly and raw. Beverly runs for the doorway to shout down the hall, “I need a nurse in here now!” 

Then she runs back to his bed where his eyes are still boring into her and his hand grabs for hers again. His mouth still moves to form words she can't understand. 

The look in his eyes is almost frantic between the coughing fits as the nurse bustles in.

“Just take a deep breath now Mr. Tozier,” the nurse says cheerfully, immune to the horror in Richie’s eyes.

"Now exhale for me. And keep breathing out."

It looks like it takes some effort, but Richie closes his eyes and obeys, squeezing Beverly's hand as he does. She squeezes back and waits, afraid to speak and tamper with a delicate process.

The tube comes out and the nurse hands him some water. He downs the cup and looks at Beverly.

_ "Where's Eddie?" _

His voice comes out raw, but the fear and intensity of his gaze is unmistakable.

Of course.

"Eddie's fine. Eddie's okay."

She should have said as soon as he woke up. God knows what's the last thing he saw before he passed out in the cave.

For now, he slumps back against the pillows in naked relief.

The nurse looks between them with a patient expression, "I'll give you two some privacy. I'm down the hall if you need anything," and with that she's gone, leaving Beverly and Richie to their shared trauma and exhaustion. Richie lies in bed, his eyes closed, a frown between his brows as he asks, his voice still sandpaper rough,

"Bill?"

"Bill's fine Richie, everybody's fine. We made it."

Richie breathes out a shaky sigh, one hand moving to cover his eyes. A tear slips between his fingers and Beverly, still holding his other hand, gives it a squeeze.

"Eddie's been here with you for the last three days," she says. Richie pointedly looks around the room as if to say, _ really? _

"Really, I only just made him go home so he would finally eat something and take a real shower."

"You're messing with me," Richie croaks, "Eds has never gone three days without a shower in his life."

Beverly smiles, sweet and sad, "He was really worried, Richie."

Richie opens his mouth and then closes it again, his expression crumbling as he turns his head away. 

She gives his hand another squeeze and says, "Let me call Ben, they've probably only been at the inn for a little while. Do you want me to call them and get them back here?"

Richie doesn't look at her, still on the verge of something, and nods his head.

\---

Eddie takes the quickest shower of his life when they reach the inn.

He really does trust Bev to watch over Richie, but he'll still feel better when he can see the man breathing again.

The shower does feel incredible though, and he allows himself a few seconds to enjoy being clean before he hurries to get some clothes on.

The moment he's pulled the shirt over his head, wincing at his sore ribs, there's a knock on his door.

"Come in," he calls, and Ben opens the door, cell phone in hand.

(Ben bought himself and Bev new phones the day after everything. He offered to buy Eddie one as well, but he said he'd pay for his own.)

But now, he's holding the phone to his ear and looks at Eddie with wide eyes.

"Richie's awake."

\---

Everybody piles into Ben's rental. Eddie's knee bounces impatiently for the whole ride there, but he doesn't speak. Bill and Mike talk softly in the backseat. Ben keeps shooting him looks from the driver's seat which Eddie pointedly ignores. 

He's not sure what the emotion is that's filling up his chest like an over inflated balloon but it's a lot. 

The four of them get back to the hospital.

Eddie marches down the hallway feeling the others hanging back.

Worry and pain and upset and so much fear. 

And then he turns the corner and sees Richie. 

His eyes are blessedly open.

He’s looking over at Bev with a tired smile. 

Eddie stands frozen as that gaze moves to meet his.

All Eddie can think of is how similar this looks is to when Richie opened his eyes and stared up at Eddie in the cave. 

The same vague softness around the eyes.

And Eddie explodes.

_ "What the fuck were you thinking!" _

Everybody jumps, and Richie’s eyebrows spike upwards, but Eddie is just raring to go. When the words are there and ready, they just spill out and he’s only just realized he’s _ furious. _

He’s stopped when three sets of hands yank him backwards and Beverly’s on her feet, pushing him back out of the room with the intensity of a linebacker.

“Be right back Richie,” she calls calmly over her shoulder as she shuts the door behind her.

The moment its closed, she looks at him, somewhere between frustration and a knowing that he does not possess.

She looks behind him to Ben.

“Has he slept?”

“No,” Ben replies sounding suddenly weary himself.

It's only then that Eddie realizes he’s crying. There are tears starting to spill down his cheeks and his breath is coming too fast, bordering on an attack.

Bev just looks at him again and looks at the others.

“Bill, Mike, can you go sit with Richie?”

They go silently, eying Eddie with care.

Beverly just pushes Eddie towards the chairs in the hall, pressing on his shoulders until he sits.

He might be having an asthma attack right now.

Or a regular panic attack.

Ben sits beside him and Beverly kneels in front of him, much the way she did that first night in the hospital, with one hand on his knee.

Now she’s looking at him, not unsympathetically as she asks, “Eddie, what’s happening right now. I need you to explain it to me.”

Eddie lets out a ragged shaky breath and leans forward to scrub his hands through his hair.

_ “Oh shit,” _ he murmurs, and Bev just nods her head.

“Yeah, you just screamed at an injured man who nearly died. You need to explain what’s happening right now Eddie.”

_ “Fuck,” _ he gasps and tries to gather it all up into something that makes sense.

When the words come, they spill out in short bursts.

“When he…in the cave…you probably didn’t see but…” he stops and closes his eyes, tries to breathe through his nose. He wishes his heart would stop racing and wishes his hands would stop shaking.

“When he woke up from the deadlights he…he pushed me out of the way. And then seconds later he got stabbed…And he didn’t he try to…” he swallows hard and looks at Beverly and Ben, “It’s all I’ve been thinking about since it happened. Replaying it in my head and he had time and…Why didn’t he try?”

Beverly’s lips are pressed into a tight, sad line and Ben just sits there, solid, patient, and remarkably without judgement.

Finally, Beverly pushes herself up and sits in the chair on his other side.

“So clearly you two need to talk. But I need you to get your shit together Eddie and not go yelling at a guy in a hospital bed,” she pushes on his arm just a little as she says it, her voice rising slightly as she does. 

“I know you’re tired and I know you’re upset, but I need you to pull it together for Richie okay?”

He nods and takes a deep breath in and another breath out.

He’s wishes he still had an inhaler.

He takes another breath in and out before nodding at Beverly.

“Okay, I’ll get the others and we’ll go down the hall to give you two a little privacy since I know you two have a lot to talk about. Just…” she stops, and he nods, already regretting his outburst and hoping desperately he doesn’t just start sobbing as soon as he sits down with Richie.

She nods back and goes into the room again, leaving a minute later with Mike and Bill in tow. 

He waits just beyond the door frame, and just avoids the looks they shoot his way as they pass. 

Sympathetic? Maybe. Concerned. Definitely.

Beverly shoots him one last look as they head down the hall as if to say, ‘Don’t fuck this up.’

And Eddie takes a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth.

And then he steps inside the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I moved this week and then it was Rosh Hashanah and we had no internet and half this chapter was typed on my phone


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the mixup with chapter 3. For those who missed the thing, in the last week or so I moved, had no internet for that entire week and typed most of chapter 2 and some of this chapter 3 on my phone, tried to post chapter 2 at the airport before I flew out of state for a friends wedding, and chapter 2 posted twice for some reason because my phone was being a bitch with airport wifi? So, my apologies for the confusion. I fixed the repost as soon as I could and if the number of chapters seems misleading its probably an error this story will have a very clear ending when it ends.
> 
> Speaking of this is gonna be 4 chapters now because these two are bad at communicating, maybe it will be 5 if they continue to not cooperate? This isn't a long fic though. And oh if you're still reading this note, I don't always write kissing scenes in my fic because I'm ace and even if the characters aren't thats just how I write sometimes? For the love of god please do not ask me if or when they will kiss or whatever its exhausting.
> 
> Also I really haven't seen My Girl. A friend who has been equally traumatized by that film once summarized it for me so the glasses thing might have been an accidental reference but really I was just trying to echo Richie's moment in the film when he tried to run back in the house.

For awhile Richie didn’t dream at all. He just floated.

Then he started to dream.

Deadlight dreams.

Bits of death and dying and Stanley in the bathtub and most of all Eddie.

Eddie crying, Eddie dying, Eddie’s blood on his glasses.

Those are the images that repeat the most between the blur of everything else.

Eddie was the last image he saw before he rocketed into consciousness, not sure of where he was.

Bev was there by his bedside or at least he was pretty sure it was Bev.

She was just a blur with red hair but he grabbed for her wrist and tried to ask where Eddie was but something in his throat was choking him and finally the nurse took it out and he was exhausted and everything hurt and he needed to know where Eddie was.

He would ask about the others too but he saw Eddie die. He saw it vividly and everything after that is a blur that he can’t make sense of when his head feels stuffed with cotton.

Beverly told him Eddie was okay and Ben and Mike and Bill.

Then she told him Eddie had been _ sitting fucking vigil by his bedside for three days without showering. _

He’s fairly sure that’s a lie since Eddie could never go that long without a shower and because he cant cope if it isn't. 

But she says he was worried.

And then he showed up, looked at Richie, and started screaming.

Richie hadn’t really had time to think about what it would be like to see Eddie after everything. 

Mostly he was just relieved to see him alive. 

Because he understands, through the fading haze of whatever drugs they put him on, that he stopped the vision the deadlights showed him from happening.

But he still has the visceral memory of Eddie’s blood on his skin.

The two thoughts are hard to reconcile.

Beverly had physically pushed Eddie out of the room before Richie could even process what was happening and then Bill and Mike were by his bedside, watching him with careful eyes.

“Hey guys,” he says with a stupid grin that hurts somehow.

“Hey Richie,” Mike says.

“Good to see you a-awake,” Bill adds.

“Is he okay?” Richie asks, eyeing the door before looking back at them.

(Well it’s probably the door, he really can’t see shit right now. Just shapes.)

The pair trade looks.

“H-he was worried about you,” Bill says, and again it’s careful.

Richie can feel a faint frustration starting to well up beneath the pain and creeping exhaustion that’s going to make it hard to stay awake. He wants to tell all of them to stop being weird and bring Eddie back before he falls asleep again.

Instead he mutters, “Beverly said that too,” and watches both men fidget beneath his gaze.

“What is it?” he demands and at that moment, the door opens and Bev steps inside.

“Come on guys,” she says to Mike and Bill, with a look at Richie that he would call…significant?

He wants to ask what the fuck is going on with everybody, but they just leave, and Bev says, “Back soon,” before stepping out the door.

And then Eddie steps into the doorway. He’s just a blurry outline but he somehow looks more exhausted than Richie’s ever seen him.

And he holds himself stiff as he steps in the room and quietly shuts the door behind him. The silence is so heavy it could strangle them, so Richie asks, “Are you gonna yell at me again?”

Eddie’s shoulder’s slump as he turns back to Richie.

“No. Sorry.”

He moves slowly, sitting in the chair by Richie’s bed. This close, Richie can see a little more detail. His hair is wet (he must have showered at the inn because of course he did) and he avoids Richie’s gaze.

“Bev says you didn’t shower for three days.”

Eddie shrugs one shoulder.

“I did my best with the hand soap in the bathroom.”

_ Jesus. _

“Why?” he asks, the question pops out of his mouth like candy from a fucking Pez dispenser and Richie regrets it immediately when Eddie finally looks at him.

His eyes are red like he might have been crying a minute or two before and his hands might be trembling in his lap.

“I saw you die, Richie,” Eddie says barely louder than a whisper.

_ “…Oh” _

“Yeah, ‘oh.’” Eddie says almost laughing but without humor.

“You had no fucking pulse and the cave was coming down. They tried to get me to leave you there, and thank _fuck_ Ben was able to carry you out.”

Richie tries to picture it and he can’t. 

But also he _ can? _

More than anything it’s Eddie’s tone that scares him.

“And then outside of the cave, you had a pulse again. I don’t understand it. Maybe it was because of Pennywise or some shit, but you died.”

And then he remembers…

_ ‘Beep beep Richie. Time to get back out there.’ _

“I think I saw Stan,” he says aloud without really meaning to and the look Eddie shoots him could put another hole in his chest.

“What?”

“Or maybe I heard him but…he…he said I was ‘too soon.’”

Eddie stares at him and then looks away suddenly, his expression scrunching up into something pained.

Again, there’s that silence. Richie opens his mouth to say something else and Eddie, without even looking at him says, “If you make a Sixth Sense joke I swear to god I will break something and blame it on you."

Richie closes his mouth again.

\---

This is not how Eddie wanted this to go.

In fairness he hadn’t really thought about ideal scenarios for three days. In fact he hadn’t thought at all beyond the idea that Richie might not wake up.

Now he’s awake and Eddie is snapping at him which is not what he should be doing. Also Richie just casually says things about seeing Stanley’s fucking ghost when he died and what is Eddie supposed to do with that information?

What is Eddie supposed to _ do? _

"Are you…" Richie starts to ask and then hesitates. A rarity for the man who earned the name Trashmouth.

"Are you okay?" He asks and he sounds so careful, so precarious, Eddie feels like he might go crazy or crack open beneath the other man's gaze. He has to look away and gather himself before he says, "Why didn't you try to get out of the way?" In something barely above a whisper.

"I've been playing that moment in my head and I can't understand _ why?" _

_ \--- _

That’s actually a good question.

Why didn't Richie get out of the way of it?

Why had he never even considered it? 

Perhaps it was because Eddie was safe.

Or because everything in that moment was a blur when the deadlights had just cracked his head open and poured a universe inside it.

Or maybe he just couldn't think about what came after the vision he averted. 

Richie's mouth opens and then closes again as he tries to think of what to say. It should be the truth, but he doesn't want to speak it into existence.

The truth of what he saw.

It breaks him a little to say it.

He looks away before he says, "When I was in the deadlights I saw you...die."

And he watches Eddie, a lightly out of focus shape from the corner of his eye. The other man fidgets and looks down before asking, "How?" 

The images are right there in his head. Still too real for him to ignore.

Richie shudders.

"In the cave, when I woke up and you were on top of me…" he looks away swallowing hard. 

It takes a second for understanding to dawn on Eddie. 

Richie can see it land in the way he sits up a little straighter and looks down. 

Is he imagining how it felt or simply swallowing all his anxieties about his own mortality?

Finally he says, "But I didn't die."

Richie shakes his head.

He _ needs _ Eddie to understand. 

He needs Eddie to understand this one thing as he speaks in shattered syllables, "But I _ saw _ you die, I _ felt _it. Your blood was on my face and…" he shakily gestures in front of his face as if that can explain it. As if that can begin to communicate what he felt.

His throat aches all over again and his eyes are full.

He turns his head to try and hide it, knowing full well he won’t be able to joke it away later. 

\---

Eddie doesn't know what to say. 

Richie just keeps going, "When I woke up and you were saying the same stuff you said before you died and I…" he waves his hand, trying to mime that single shove.

"I wasn't really thinking straight. I just knew you were safe when It…"

He shakes his head again, still looking away, and there are tears in his eyes, and Eddie _ does not know what to say. _

"I saw you die," Richie says again like the words pain him in the saying.

But Eddie didn't die. 

Richie pushed him out of the way.

But Richie _ felt _ him die.

And he saw Richie die.

_ Fuck. _

And now Richie looks like he's trying and failing to not cry and Eddie does not know what to say...Or better yet what to _ do. _

Neither of them are built for this.

They aren't built for hospital vigils and deadlight visions and near death experiences.

"Does it hurt?" Eddie asks as the silence stretches too long.

Richie looks at him, shaky and on edge.

"What?"

"Does it hurt?" Eddie repeats, a little impatiently as he gestures at his own chest with an unsteady hand.

Richie almost laughs, it sounds like a sob.

He shrugs one shoulder and shakes his head.

What do you do when you don't realize a thing until it's nearly gone?

What do you do when the best person you nearly forgot almost dies to save you?

_ What do you do? _

Richie's still shaking his head as a tear spills down his cheek. He looks so unbelievably tired.

"I...I'm glad your okay," Eddie says and Richie's gaze cuts to him like broken glass. The corner of his mouth quirks in a poor approximation of a smile.

"Trashmouth lives to strike again," he says and Eddie wants to scream a little bit. They are so bad at this and he can already feel some wall coming up between them when he just wants them to be okay.

He wants Richie to be okay and he wants him to understand that Eddie would have been a wreck without him.

They are both so bad at this.

\---

Richie sometimes wants to punch himself in the face.

Eddie is obviously trying to be kind, since Richie started crying like an idiot after admitting to seeing a future that Eddie just has to take his word on. 

(Obviously given what happened its probably believable, but Richie has historically been a dumbass who talked shit his entire life so there is literally no reason for Eddie to take him seriously)

And then Richie made a stupid joke because he's utterly incapable of doing anything appropriate to any situation ever.

And now Eddie is just looking at him with an expression that might be hard to read even if Richie did have his glasses on. 

"Do you want me to go?" Eddie finally asks and Richie stares at him.

He wants to say _no. _

He wants to say something about Eddie's _actual fucking wife_ who he should probably be with right now instead of him.

He wants to say, nobody ever told him how to profess his actual love for a man he's been head over heels for all his life (except for when he nearly forgot him because of a shit clown from space).

He wants to say, _ 'Hey Eddie I'm gay, are you?' _ And he wants to say, _ 'Please don't leave because this feels like a dream, and I'm scared that I'll wake up and you'll be gone.' _

He doesn't say those things.

He says nothing at all and finally Eddie nods like that was answer enough and gets to his feet. 

Richie should let him go.

He should be satisfied that Eddie's alive and let him go back to his wife.

But Richie is so weak.

He reaches up and grabs Eddie's wrist before he can think not to.

Sleep's already pulling at him and he just says, _ "Please." _

And Eddie stares at him for a long moment before sitting back down

"Okay, I'll stay," Eddie says, almost too soft to hear.

Richie breathes a sigh of relief and let's his eyes slide closed.

As he drifts off, he can feel Eddie shifting their hands to thread their fingers together.

And then he slips into sleep and the deadlight dreams that come with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll just add here that I love two idiots and everybody has been really sweet in the comments for this fic, I appreciate the enthusiasm.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter kids, enjoy.

Eddie remembered Richie after he left Derry.

Not in the specifics of what he said or how his glasses magnified his eyes.

But in the general way of a boy with skinny legs who made his heart beat faster.

He remembered Richie enough to watch his terrible Netflix special and feel a sort of breathless affection he couldn’t quite make sense of.

He is married after all, even if he hasn’t been happy about it most of the time.

And Eddie's doesn't know when the switch happened. 

The switch from affectionate memory to something immediate and consuming.

The moment when everything slotted back into place suddenly and terribly. 

But sometime between the Chinese restaurant and the cave, Eddie was a goner.

When Richie asked him to stay, he wanted to say, _ 'I don't want to leave. I'm just an idiot and so are you.' _

Instead he sat back down and held Richie’s hand.

An hour or so later, Bev pokes her head in the room and Eddie looks up from where his head rests against Richie's mattress.

"Everything okay now?" She whispers.

Eddie shrugs and sees her seeing their clasped hands. 

Her eyes go soft as she says, "I can sit with him again if you need a break."

Eddie shakes his head.

"He asked me to stay," he says and she smiles, "It's getting late. But we'll come back tomorrow okay?"

"Okay," he says.

She leaves, shaking her head gently as she closes the door behind her.

And Eddie sits.

Richie sleeps and Eddie lets his head fall back against the mattress.

He doesn't sleep. 

A nurse comes in to check on them. She says Richie should be cleared to leave the hospital in a few days.

He doesn't know what time it is, but the lights have been dimmed for the evening when Richie gasps and jolts awake like he's been struck by lightning. His eyes are wild and he’s practically hyperventilating and Eddie jumps to his feet. 

They’re still holding hands and Richie’s grip is tight enough to make bones grind.

“Fucking hell Richie, should I get the nurse?”

Richie’s eyes land on him with an almost solid weight.

He shakes his head.

His breathing doesn’t steady.

“Okay, um…” Eddie says, still standing, ready to call for a doctor or _ somebody _while also calculating the likelihood that a stomach injury could cause a heart attack or something.

Or the possibility that it’s just bad dreams.

Something he’s had no shortage of, especially since he’s come back to Derry.

They’re just staring at each other. Richie gasping like he’s run a mile, Eddie frozen in indecision, _ still _ holding hands.

“Uh...just breathe, okay? You’re gonna fuck with your stitches if you keep on…” he trails off as the other man looks at him.

“Seriously Eds?” Richie gasps. It looks like there are tears again as he almost glares at Eddie in a consternated exasperation.

Eddie swallows hard and looks down at their clasped hands. Richie follows his gaze and only just seems to notice the touch.

“Oh shit,” he mutters, letting go of Eddie’s hand like it burned him and Eddie stands there stupidly as his friend scrubs at his face with both hands and exhales a long, shaky breath.

“Richie,” he says, softer than he might have dared under the harsh fluorescent light of day.

Now its darker, not enough to make anything hard to see, but enough to smooth out all the edges daylight brings into such stark relief. 

Dark enough that he feels sleepy, stupid, and almost brave enough to try.

Something in Eddie’s tone makes Richie look at him again. Those wide eyes, sharp and guarded.

He has no idea what to say as he opens his mouth and says, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry,” Richie repeats, still breathless and uneven, with hands that shake as they hover, inches from his face.

Eddie folds his arms over his chest, fighting impatience.

_“I’m sorry,” _he says again, more edged than necessary. “I’m sorry for what you saw in the deadlights, and for yelling, and for not saying thank you when you told me that you _saved my fucking life.”__  
_Richie’s hands fall to the mattress as he stares at Eddie.

Eddie’s full of surprises, apparently.

Finally, Richie looks away, that cut glass look in his eyes again. 

A shipwreck and shrapnel all over his furrowed brow. 

His hands clench the blanket at his sides, and he’s trembling from top to toe, and Eddie doesn’t know what else to say in the silence that follows.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t get the nurse?” he asks after what feels like a year and Richie grits out, “Yes I’m sure. Don’t get the fucking nurse.”

Eddie doesn’t know what to do.

He’s still standing there, hands out like he might do something, like he _ could do something. _

“You shouldn’t thank me,” Richie finally says, his voice rough and uneven.

“Why not?”

And Richie looks at him again, the wreckage all over his face and in his eyes.

“Because, it was selfish.”

“...Excuse me?” Eddie asks in obvious disbelief.

“I saved you, because I saw you die...I saw what came _ after. _ I knew I wouldn’t be able to live like that...not really…” he trails off and looks away, pained and biting his lip, one shoulder raised slightly, almost like he’s ready to flinch away from whatever Eddie might say next.

Meanwhile Eddie just stares, openmouthed.

They are both so bad at this.

He’s still standing and he takes a single step back, as the full weight of it sinks in. Richie cringes a little, watching him do it.

Eddie’s an idiot and Richie’s also an idiot and they’ve wasted 27 years being so utterly stupid.

“Fuck it,” he mutters and Richie shuts his eyes and looks away like he’s getting ready to withdraw when Eddie steps forward, hands moving, uncertain of how this jigsaw puzzle is supposed to work.

“No not _ that, _ I mean…” he tries and Richie looks at him again, still wary as Eddie takes another step forward, gesturing, because he doesn’t even know what to fucking _ say. _

“I mean...Richie just…” he waves his hand at the bed.

“Move over.”

“What?” Richie asks like the asshole he is and Eddie’s so fucking tired and completely out of patience.

“I mean I haven’t slept in three days, you need to sleep and both of us can’t, so _ move over.” _

Richie gapes as he finally understands what Eddie is articulating worse than an actual child might. 

Like they’re children fighting over a hammock.

“You’re not serious,” Richie says and Eddie throws his hands in the air.

“What? Do you need me to fucking say it? I was a mess down there Richie. I thought you died, and I wanted to run in the house to get your fucking glasses because I thought that would help and then you didn’t die and I’ve been sitting here for three days in this fucking hospital thinking you wouldn’t wake up and not knowing what the fuck to do with myself if you didn’t wake up because now that, that _ fucking clown _ hasn’t erased half my memories I remember you. _ All of you, _and I don’t know what I would have done without you around so just…”

The words spill out in a rush and run out just as quickly. He waves his hand at the bed again when he’s got no more shit to say and Richie’s still staring at him like he just vomited all over the floor, or maybe like he just started flying and told Richie he was a wizard.

He’s staring like Eddie just upended the world and Eddie doesn’t know what else he can possibly say when Richie slowly scoots himself to the far side of the bed, leaving an impossibly small space for another adult man to fit.

Still, Eddie is nothing if not stubborn when he’s decided to do a thing. So he climbs into bed, and Richie never takes his eyes off him.

There’s a few moments of awkward shifting as Eddie tries not to lie on any important tubes or wires and winces a little as the motion presses on his injured ribs.

“You okay?” Richie asks, suddenly talking much softer. They’re practically and quite suddenly almost nose to nose.

“Yeah I just...I guess I cracked a rib when I fell after you…” he whispers, feeling sheepish all of the sudden.

“Oh...sorry…” Richie says.

Eddie shakes his head, “Don’t be. It’s better than...you know…”

Richie slowly nods, still never taking his eyes off Eddie.

“I keep waiting to wake up and find out I dreamed all this,” he mutters, “I keep dreaming about...what I saw and I wake up thinking its real.”

Eddie’s chest aches like fucking heartburn, but so much worse. He finds Richie’s hands somewhere in the tangle between them and grabs them both.

“I’m going to be furious if this is just a dream, because then I’ll have to say all that shit to you again,” he whispers, trying for stern but just sounding stupid and soft.

Richie smiles, squeezing Eddie’s hands.

“See it’s shit like that, that makes me think this has to be a dream,” he whispers.

“Definitely not a dream,” Eddie replies, “I’m pretty sure your fantasy doesn’t include me screaming at you for saving my life or you giving me an anuerysm by being such a fucking dumbass.”

Richie’s grin widens, crooked and uneven. His eyelids are starting to droop and he’s clearly fighting it.

“If I go to sleep and then you’re gone, I’ll be pissed,” he murmurs. Eddie sighs, also unbelievably tired, but also with the feeling that he might actually be able to sleep now. He nudges closer to Richie, pressing their heads together, feeling the other man’s warmth and his curls tickling Eddie’s forehead.

“Definitely not a dream, Trashmouth. Go the fuck to sleep.”

Richie’s laugh is a warm gust on Eddie’s cheek.

“Okay Eddie Spaghetti.”

\---

Richie wakes up warm. Warmer than he’s ever been.

And then last night comes rushing back at the same time he realizes Eddie’s wrapped around him, with his nose in Richie’s shoulder.

He startles so hard he nearly falls off the bed.

He startles Eddie in the process and the other man also flails like he might also fall off the bed, because two grown men are not meant to fit on one fucking hospital bed, and also Richie really thought last night might have been a dream...or a hallucination.

_ “Jesus Richie,” _Eddie mumbles, still sleep rumpled as he seems to notice just how knitted together they are.

All the wires and tubes are practically trapping them together now.

Richie watches Eddie open his eyes to properly observe the situation before looking at Richie.

“Still think this is a dream?”

“I thought I was hallucinating,” Richie replies and Eddie huffs out a laugh.

“You’re into some fucked up shit if this is what you fantasize about.”

“Go ask your mom about what I’m into,” Richie says with a smirk that falls off instantly because _ why is he like this? _

But Eddie just shakes his head and laughs.

“Fuck you Trashmouth. I think we’re gonna need the nurse to untangle us.”

“Oh,” Richie says, his stomach dropping. Maybe last night was half a hallucination when Eddie said all the nice shit like verbal diarrhea. Maybe this is just…

_ “Jesus fuckface, I didn’t mean permanently,” _Eddie snaps, “I have to pee and I don’t want to disconnect something and accidentally kill you.”

“Oh,” Richie says, feeling his cheeks start to burn.

Eddie just stares at him, exasperated and yet fond.

At that moment the door opens and the nurse walks in.

_ “Oh, _good morning Mr. Tozier, Mr. Kaspbrak. That bed is really meant for one.”

Now both of them are blushing as Eddie turns his head, clearly aiming for calm and missing by a mile as he says, “I seem to be a little caught up in all this, if you could um…”

The nurse looks almost amused as she walks over to the bed and begins extricating him from the bed, carefully moving wires and tubes around them both.

“Ah marital bliss,” she says, dry as desert sand and Richie’s gaze snaps to Eddie as Eddie turns tomato red.

_ ‘What?’ _ he mouths because, _ what? _ _   
_“Bev said it so they wouldn’t kick me out after visiting hours,” Eddie hisses back, “Also shut up.”

The nurse finishes moving wires and Eddie’s able to tumble off the bed with his hair sticking up at odd angles. It shouldn’t be that adorable but Richie’s that kind of a dumbass, he supposes.

“I’ll um…” Eddie looks between him and the nurse, “Yeah.”

He bolts out the door for the bathroom and Richie can’t help the giggle that comes from watching him do it.

The nurse just shakes her head and heads for the door. 

“Thanks,” Richie calls after her, still embarrassed but probably not enough.

She just keeps shaking her head as she opens the door and says, “Call if you need anything,” and shuts it behind her.

A minute or so later, Richie hears the toilet flush and Eddie steps out of the room, still red and embarrassed. He looks around like he’s checking that the nurse left before he steps into the room and sits down on the end of Richie’s bed.

“Hey,” he says, smiling just a little, looking almost relaxed.

“Hi,” Richie replies, still waiting for the rug to be pulled out from underneath him.

“We’re going to need to talk about some stuff eventually,” Eddie says with a pensive glance around the room.

“Oh?” Richie asks and it sounds way too nervous for that totally normal statement from Eddie.

He seems to hear the panic in Richie’s tone from the look he gives him.

“Well I’ll probably need to get a divorce at some point if this is serious,” Eddie says with a precise sort of care, looking at the bedspread rather than Richie.

“Yes its serious,” Richie says, too fast and too fucking eager. 

The other man’s mouth quirks as he starts picking at the material of the blanket and adds, “And I’ll probably need to move to Los Angeles…”

Richie just nods helplessly because _ yes. _

Eddie’s smile widens when he looks up and meets Richie’s gaze and at that moment the door opens and the rest of the Losers come pouring in.

The others look almost cautious but Beverly is practically grinning from what Richie can make out (he really needs new glasses)

“So?” She asks and Eddie’s turning red and Richie can’t help a shit eating grin as he says, “Eddie Spaghetti is moving to LA.”

Eddie seems to be turning redder by the second as he corrects, “Eddie is _getting a_ _ divorce _and then moving to LA.”

The others seem to be trading looks with raised brows and growing smiles as Eddie, very purposefully takes Richie’s hand and looks back at all of them, sitting a little too straight like he's defying them to comment.

Richie doesn’t even have time to feel nervous about this because everybody just nods like this is normal and not in any way remarkable as they all find somewhere to sit or lean.

“I’ll be going home soon too,” Bill says.

“And Bev is moving in with me,” Ben adds with a massive smile that Beverly shares, leaning into him a little.

“And I’m getting the hell out of Derry,” Mike says, equally pleased.

It seems Richie needn’t have worried about the others knowing who he was all these years.

It seems that the Losers would always have accepted him for who he is and Eddie apparently would have been a wreck without him and…

Richie is _happy._

There haven’t been marriage proposals, they haven’t really even kissed or said ‘I love you’ yet, but they have time now.

All of them finally have time.

And then Mike pulls a letter out of his pocket.

“This came in the mail, I think Stan’s wife sent all of us a copy…”

He holds the folded paper in his hand and everyone stops and stares.

“Read it,” Bill says and with a nod, Mike does.

The letter is addressed to all of them. It explains why Stan took his own life. Why he couldn’t bear to face It again. And then, as Mike reads, Richie closes his eyes and remembers the words, _ ‘Too soon’ _ and thinks, _t__hanks Stan, _before opening his eyes to listen again.

_ ‘Be who you want to be.” _ The letter says, _ “Be proud. And if you find someone worth holding on to, never ever let them go.’ _

Richie looks at Eddie, who is watching him, serious, sad, and happy too. He’s still holding Richie’s hand and he tightens his grip just a little and smiles as their eyes meet.

_ ‘Follow your own path, wherever that takes you. Think of this letter as a promise.’ _

All of the Losers sit in silence as Mike finishes the letter.

And the looks that pass between them all seem to say the same thing.

_ 'We will.' _

_ \--- _

In the months that follow there’s a lot of difficult moments.

Eddie’s divorce is not pretty or kind. Its just mean and painful, the way their marriage so often was.

Beverly’s divorce is even worse, but she says she’s happy when its over.

After a few months, Bill finishes his next book. He dedicates to _ ‘Stan and the Losers.’ _

Most people find it to be a weird dedication but at least that book has a decent ending.

Mike goes to Florida and sends them all endless pictures of beaches and sun. He says he wants to go to Hawaii next, and then travel around Europe.

Six months after, Richie gets up on stage with shaky hands and material he wrote himself.

“So I’ve had a pretty crazy year. It turns out I’m fucking terrified of clowns. Also my boyfriend Eddie demanded to not be made fun of in this set, but I do have to mention how this man _cleans…”_

Time passes, wounds heal and scars heals and an apartment for two is bought and keys are exchanged with the finality of rings

And little affections grow commonplace without losing their wonder.

They have a long way to go and so much more growing to do, but Eddie and Richie are finally together.

Finally happy.

Happy enough that eventually Richie’s going to propose with all the composure of a hyperactive Pomeranian and Eddie’s going to absolutely lose his shit and they’ll bicker the way they always did.

The way they did back when they were two boys fighting over a hammock or screaming in a sewer, all the way to when they were adults fighting in a Chinese restaurant or a hospital room.

Their lives have a cyclical nature, but there are a few truths that both of them can rely on.

Eddie loves Richie

And Richie loves Eddie.

And they are both alive.

And so very, _very_ happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck canon I do what I want and these two live hApPiLy EvEr AfTeR. Thanks to everybody for reading and jumping on the pain train with me and these idiots.


End file.
